James Hood, one of the first black students at the University of Alabama, dies

Thursday

Jan 17, 2013 at 5:27 PM

James Hood, who faced down George Wallace's stand in the schoolhouse door to help integrate the University of Alabama 50 years ago, died Thursday afternoon at the age of 70, in his hometown of Gadsden.

By Mark Hughes CobbStaff Writer

James Hood, who faced down George Wallace's stand in the schoolhouse door to help integrate the University of Alabama 50 years ago, died Thursday afternoon at the age of 70, in his hometown of Gadsden.“James did a great thing for the University of Alabama,” said E. Culpepper Clark, former dean of UA's College of Communication & Information Sciences, and author of “The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation's Last Stand at the University of Alabama.”“With Vivian Malone, he liberated the university to serve all the people of Alabama and thereby join the ranks of the nation's flagship universities.”Hood and Vivian Malone Jones, who died in 2005, attempted to register and pay fees June 11, 1963, at UA's Foster Auditorium, accompanied by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. Gov. George Wallace, surrounded by a phalanx of state troopers, barred them, attempting to keep his infamous inaugural promise of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Later that day, Wallace backed down after President John F. Kennedy federalized the National Guard.That moment was one of four major events in Alabama's central part in the civil rights movement, Clark said, along with the church bombing in Birmingham later in 1963, Bloody Sunday in Selma and the marches from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. The image of Wallace's jutting jaw, with the stoic defiance of the students, became iconic.“Proof of that is that the scene is in (the movie) ‘Forrest Gump,' but not in (Winston Groom's) book,” he said. Hollywood screenwriters knew that their first big moment of Forrest on major historical stages would be the schoolhouse door at Foster Auditorium.“It created a feeling in the nation that Alabama was ground zero for the civil rights struggle.”Hood, 20 at the time of the stand and interested in studying clinical psychology, stayed at UA only a few months, then withdrew and moved to Michigan. He received a bachelor's degree from Wayne State University and a masters' degree from Michigan State University, before returning to UA and achieving his goal of a doctorate.Samory T. Pruitt, UA vice president for community affairs, met Hood in the mid-'90s, at a program marking the 30-year anniversary of Jones' graduation. He interviewed Hood, Jones, Autherine Lucy and 13 others for his dissertation “A Reflection of Student Desegregation at the University of Alabama, As Seen through the Eyes of some Pioneering African-American Students 1956-1976,” published in 2003.“One of the things I've always taken away from it, none of them were really afraid, because they thought they were doing the right thing, and were just very spiritual about it,” Pruitt said. “They felt like they were led to do what they did. They really didn't talk much about being afraid or bitter. It wasn't about fame, anything like that. it was just clear to them that those obstacles shouldn't be in place. So if someone needed to step up and try to remove some of those barriers, let it be them.”Hood was “a very personable man, and obviously a very courageous man,” said Pruitt, who got to be friends with Hood and his family. He attended the BCS Championship Game in Miami with Hood's son; when the call came Thursday, Pruitt thought the younger man was calling to revel again in the victory.“I thank God for his courage, because if it wasn't for people like him, folks like me wouldn't have the opportunities we have,” he said.UA will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the successful integration; Clark said he'd miss seeing Hood there, “...but I will remember the warmth of his smile and what he did for us all.”Hood was a complex man, Clark said, who forgave Wallace for his part in the stand, believing the former governor when he claimed to be making a constitutional point.“But what we need to remember about him was what he did for us, the principle he established when he and Vivian Malone Jones walked past George Wallace,” he said.